


i don’t really blame you for being dead, but you can’t have your sweater back

by leafvillagebitch



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon, Unrequited Love, eddie is dead, sorry - Freeform, this is just sad i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22531843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leafvillagebitch/pseuds/leafvillagebitch
Summary: Richie didn’t resent his friends’ happiness, although he didn’t think anyone would have blamed him if he did. It was just that there was work to be done, and he was the only one who seemed to have a mind to do it.
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	i don’t really blame you for being dead, but you can’t have your sweater back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justdoityoufucker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdoityoufucker/gifts).



> john mulaney voice and i also don't want me to be doing what i'm doing
> 
> (title from straw house, straw dog by Richard Siken)

Richie didn’t resent his friends’ happiness, although he didn’t think anyone would have blamed him if he did. It was just that there was work to be done, and he was the only one who seemed to have a mind to do it. This was how, although it would be almost too great a burden, he had found himself going through Eddie’s things. Someone had to decide what was worth shipping back to his apartment in New York, and what… well, wasn’t, and apparently that herculean task had fallen to Richie. 

He still wasn’t sure why Eddie had brought three suitcases - how long had he expected this would take? Richie had barely brought a toothbrush - Although, he supposed, that’s how it had always been; Eddie had always made sure to bring enough for both of them.

He took a deep breath, unzipped the carry-on sized bag, and found it mostly empty, save for a first aid kit. This must have been toiletries, he thought. He decided he could toss the first aid kit and put away that suitcase. 

“Okay,” he said to himself, “One down.” and he tossed a larger suitcase onto the bed.

It felt wrong, almost, to be going through Eddie’s things. He turned around, not for the first time, as if Eddie was going to open the hotel room door and start telling him that of  _ course _ he brought his own sheets, hotel beds were covered in germs, and Richie was folding his shirts all wrong, and where were the shoes he had left by the door, and then he remembered that Eddie wouldn’t need his shoes anymore, and he began to feel like someone had reached into his chest and started squeezing so tight that his heart might explode. He knew that if he didn’t sit down he would probably collapse, so he sat on the edge of the bed, and that’s when he saw the luggage tag: 

“Eddie Kaspbrak - In Case of Emergency Call  _ Myra Kaspbrak (212) 694-2069. _ ”

Shit. Myra. Richie pulled his phone out of his pocket, took a deep breath, and called her. Someone had to, he thought as it rang, and he certainly couldn’t expect any of the others to do it. This was something that he knew was his responsibility, even if it took all the breath in his chest to even think about saying the words out loud.

“Hello?” A shrill voice on the other line answered. She sounded so much like Sonia that Richie jumped a little as he saw a glimpse into Eddie’s existence: still being told that he was delicate, that was the word Sonia had always used, she’d always talked about “how delicate my little Eddie Bear is,” and it had always made Richie so angry. Some things never change.

“Hi… Is this uh, is this Myra…” Richie paused just a little too long, recoiling at the thought that this was the person who got to wake up next to Eddie every morning, “Myra Kaspbrak?”

“And who’s this?”   
  


“This is uh… This is Richie Tozier, a childhood friend of Eddie’s, and uh-” 

“Oh, God, Eddie! Has something happened to him? I told him not to go but- Wait… did you say Richie Tozier? I didn’t realize you were Eddie’s childhood friend… No wonder he likes your comedy so much, if you can even call it that. I think it’s so vulgar and obscene, but Eddie thinks it’s just hilarious - he owns all your specials, and we even saw you live once-”

They had seen him live once, Richie thought. He dropped the phone from his ear, put his head between his legs, and tried to keep his breath steady. They had seen him live once. He and Eddie had been in the same room and Richie didn’t even realize he was there, much less what they had meant to each other. His ears started to ring as he processed what seemed to be another in the long line of tricks It had played on them.

He realized that Myra was still talking, and that he was going to have to interrupt her in order to tell her; he wasn’t sure when she would stop long enough for him to get a word in, and he wasn’t sure how long he could last without breaking down. As it was, it felt like he was trying to understand what she was saying through a one-way mirror; he envied the way her world was continuing to turn.

“Eddie was really brave, and uh…” He felt tears start to fall down his cheeks, and he took another breath. Although it was different from the way Richie had loved him, Myra had loved Eddie too; maybe they weren’t all that different. His stomach dropped at having to say the words out loud. The idea of having to stop Myra’s world from turning made him feel sick.

“Well…” Myra sounded incredulous.

“No,” Richie said louder, “He saved my life. He saved my life and he-” and something in her tone made him realize that this woman hadn’t loved Eddie. She hadn’t even really known Eddie. Richie’s heart lurched at the thought that no one had ever loved Eddie as he had deserved, and then he felt his stomach drop again, this time because he knew that he would tell her what had happened, and her world would stop turning momentarily, but he knew that she knew nothing of love. She would eventually be fine, maybe even remarry. He had loved Eddie and lost him and loved him and lost him again, and now that he remembered everything, the weight of it all was going to suffocate him.

He felt the emotion drop out of his voice. “He’s dead, Myra.”

Richie had to pull the phone away from his ear because her screaming was so loud. It sounded almost primal, but he felt no kinship with this pain. This wasn’t the pain of someone losing the love of their life. This was fear -- Richie wasn’t about to guess what she was afraid of; he assumed Eddie had made most of the money, thanks to It, but couldn’t be certain. It didn’t matter; Myra wasn’t his responsibility past this phone call. 

“I’ll ship his belongings before I leave,” he said into the phone. He wasn't sure if she heard him or not, but he didn’t really care. 

He hung up and laid back on the bed. When he turned his head, he saw the soft indentation on the pillow where Eddie had woken up the previous morning. He reached his arm out across the bed and wondered what it would have felt like to hold Eddie. He wondered if it would have been different if he had told Eddie how he felt. 

He felt himself start to crack, started crying harder than he had cried in his life. Eddie is dead, and everything is worse now, he thought, but then he remembered that there were still belongings to go through, and he was the one who had to do it. He could fall apart when the work was done. 

He opened the hotel closet, because of course Eddie used the hotel closet, and started pulling polo shirt after polo shirt off of the hangers and into the large suitcase. He paused when he got to where Eddie’s red jacket still hung. He pulled it off the hanger and without thinking brought it up to his face and took a deep breath. It still smelled so quintessentially  _ Eddie _ that it brought tears to Richie’s eyes. 

He folded it up and put it aside; Myra wouldn’t miss a single jacket - She probably wouldn’t even realize it was missing - He could keep this, he reasoned, as proof. That Eddie had been real, that he had kissed Richie out of the deadlights, that he was the only person Richie would ever love. And, if Richie allowed himself one more indulgence, the only person who had ever loved Richie as he had wanted to be loved.

He finished with the closet and walked into the bathroom, where he threw out mostly everything. He assumed Myra probably didn’t care about any of Eddie’s vitamins or other medications, and frankly he assumed that Eddie had multiples of everything in that bathroom from the vitamins to the toothbrush to the razor and aftershave. Richie couldn’t help but smell the aftershave, so he pocketed that too - since he was just going to throw it out anyway. 

When he finished, he put the coat and aftershave in his car, not wanting them to get mixed in with his things just yet. He packed up all of his own things and threw them in the trunk next to Eddie’s suitcases, planning to leave early in the morning.

He knocked on Bev’s door to say goodbye. He could tell from the look on her face that he didn’t look well, but he didn’t mind her concern. 

“I called Myra- Eddie’s wife,” he said. “I’m mailing Eddie’s things up to her in the morning before I leave.”

“Oh, Richie,” Bev pulled him into a hug, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“I did, though.” Richie said. He said it without malice; it was just a fact. He knew that he needed to do this, for Eddie, and for himself, and he kn ew that wasn’t something Bev would understand. Bev had lost Eddie too, but more importantly she had gained Ben, and he knew that this clouded her ability to see him clearly. He didn’t resent her for it, but he understood that she could not even begin to comprehend how calling Myra was where his grief had taken him.

“Anyway, I’m leaving in the morning. Just going around and saying goodbye to everyone. Love you, Bevvie. I expect to be the godfather of the adorable children you and Ben have!”

“Beep beep, Richie. Love you too.”

He rolled out of town after dropping off the suitcases, as promised, to go back to Myra. He took the scenic route, Eddie’s jacket and aftershave in the seat next to him. When he pulled onto the kissing bridge, he turned on his hazards and parked the car. 

There, just where he remembered, R+E. It had faded over the last 27 years, but it was still there. He traced it with his thumb and let himself crack open. 

He wept, and his whole body shook. It felt like he had boarded the wrong plane, and now he was somewhere that he didn’t speak the language and didn’t understand the customs and he just wanted to go home, but he wasn’t quite sure where that was anymore because Eddie was dead and everything was worse now.

He pulled out his pocket knife and started carving their initials deeper, as if to emphasize what he was trying to say all those years ago: I am here and I love Eddie Kaspbrak. He wished he had told Eddie that summer how he felt, he wished he had told him three days ago, and he hoped that wherever he was, Eddie knew: Richie would love him forever. In life, in death, at the end of the world, Richie would love him.

**Author's Note:**

> richie never ever wears the jacket, but he hangs it in his closet and sometimes he just holds on to it, also he switches aftershaves and shaves every day after that, again, john mulaney voice and i also don't want me to be doing what i'm doing


End file.
